Yes they have, you just need to be willing to actually read what the case is saying, in most cases not outright, but in light and in consideration of the meaning and intention of the various classes of tax in respects to taxation (e.g. negative pregnant). As well there was no need for them to define the word capitation tax, because it was common knowledge what it meant, there was no confusion about that, not like there is in the present. As well numerous legal definitions define capitation tax as I have described it to you.No. No federal court has ever ruled that this is definition of a capitation. Nowhere in the text of the Constitution is the term "capitation" or "capitation tax" defined this way.
Yes they have, that it was is meant by "indirect". Indirect taxes can't be forced upon the people except through their own willingness to engage in the taxable activity itself, unlike "direct" taxes which can.No. No federal court has ever ruled that "indirect taxation" is limited to taxes upon engagements or activities using revenue, stock, capital or property as the basis for engaging in such activities. Many or even most of the taxable events on which indirect taxes are imposed do involve "activity", but there is no constitutional requirement for an "activity".
I take it you are now half-way at least admitting that there is some truth to what I have been stating. Though in taxing the labor or the result of the labor, which is to say the revenue, remuneration, pay, or compensation is the same thing. Remember SCOTUS has stated taxing the shadow is the same as taxing the source of the shadow itself. Otherwise Congress could simplycircumvent the spirit of U.S. Constitution at their leisure.That is probably incorrect. However, the federal income tax is not precisely a tax on the "act of laboring" anyway.
No, every case, when referring to capitation taxes, references such taxes aside from 'direct taxes', it would be more correct to state capitation taxes are a kind or a class of direction taxation or exist within the category of direct taxes, such as are 'poll-taxes', 'personal taxes', and 'direct taxes'. Which is what I have been stating all along, if you would just stop and listen.By the way, a "capitation" is a kind of "direct tax."
I entirely agree with your assertion, though income taxes are not the appropriate class of tax in consideration of taxing ones laboring or their accumulated earnings from such. This also dovetails with the principles of double taxation.Now, Weston, look for an actual federal court ruling that contradicts this statement: "Since the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment it is immaterial, with respect to income taxes, whether the tax is a direct or an indirect tax."
The Corporation Tax Law of 1909, having been enacted before the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, was not in any proper sense an income tax law; but was an excise tax upon the conduct of business in a corporate capacity measured by the income, with certain qualifications prescribed by the act itself.
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Income may be defined as the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined.
Stratton's Independence, Ltd. v. Howbert, 231 U.S. 399 (1913)
Below are several cases confirming my contentions:
Must diversity of opinion has always prevailed upon the question what are direct taxes? Attempts to answer it by reference to the definitions of political economists have been frequently made, but without satisfactory results. The enumeration of the different kinds of taxes which Congress was authorized to impose was probably made with very little reference to their speculations. The great work of Adam Smith, the first comprehensive treatise on political economy in the English language, had then been recently published, but in this work, though there are passages which refer to the characteristic difference between direct and indirect taxation, there is nothing which affords any valuable light on the use of the words "direct taxes" in the Constitution.
Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 75 U.S. 8Wall. 533 533 (1869)
All taxes on expenses or consumption are indirect taxes. A tax on carriages is of this kind, and of course is not a direct tax. Indirect taxes are circuitous modes of reaching the revenue of individuals, who generally live according to their income. In many cases of this nature the individual may be said to tax himself. I shall close the discourse with reading a passage or two from Smith's Wealth of Nations.
"The impossibility of taxing people in proportion to their revenue by any capitation seems to have given occasion to the invention of taxes upon consumable commodities; the state, not knowing how to tax directly and proportionally the revenue of its subjects, endeavors to tax it indirectly by taxing their expense, which it is supposed in most cases will be neatly in proportion to their revenue. Their expense is taxed by taxing the consumable commodities upon which it is laid out."
"Consumable commodities, whether necessaries or luxuries, may be taxed in two different ways: the consumer may either pay an annual sum on account of his using or consuming goods of a certain kind or the goods may be taxed while they remain in the hands of the dealer, and before they are delivered to the consumer. The consumable goods, which last a considerable time before they are consumed altogether, are most properly taxed in the one way, those of which the consumption is immediate or more speedy in the other; the coach tax and plate tax are examples of the former method of imposing; the greater part of the other duties of excise and customs of the latter."
Hylton v. United States, 3 U.S. 3 Dall. 171 171 (1796)
In 75 U. S. 543, 75 U. S. 544, 75 U. S. 546, the principal question was whether a tax on state bank notes issued for circulation was a direct tax. On behalf of the bank, it was contended by distinguished counsel that the tax was a direct one, and that it was. Invalid because not apportioned among the States agreeably to the Constitution. In explanation of the nature of direct taxes, they relied largely (so the authorized report of the case states) on the writings of Adam Smith and on other treatises, English and American, on political economy. In the discussion of the case, reference was made by counsel to the former decisions in Hylton v. United States and Pacific Ins. Co. v. Soule. Chief Justice Chase, delivering the judgment of the court, after observing (as I have already stated) that the works of political economists gave no valuable light on the question as to what, in the constitutional@ sense, were direct taxes, entered upon an examination of the numerous acts of Congress imposing taxes. That examination, he announced on behalf of this court, showed
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company, 158 U.S. 601 (1895)
But Albert Gallatin, in his "Sketch of the Finances of the United States," published in November, 1796, said:
"The most generally received opinion, however, is that, by direct taxes in the Constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people; by indirect, such as are raised on their expense. As that opinion is, in itself, rational and conformable to the decision which has taken place on the subject of the carriage tax, and as it appears important, for the sake of preventing future controversies, which may be not more fatal to the revenue than to the tranquility of the Union, that a fixed interpretation should be generally adopted, it will not be improper to corroborate it by quoting the author from whom the idea seems to have been borrowed."
He then quotes from Smith's Wealth of Nations, and continues:
"The remarkable coincidence of the clause of the Constitution with this passage in using the word 'capitation' as a generic expression, including the different species of direct taxes, an acceptation of the word peculiar, it is believed, to Dr. Smith, leaves little doubt that the framers of the one had the other in view at the time, and that they, as well as he, by direct taxes, meant those paid directly from, and falling immediately on, the revenue, and, by indirect, those which are paid indirectly out of the revenue by falling immediately upon the expense."
In the debates in the House of Representatives preceding the passage of the act of Congress to lay "duties upon carriages for the conveyance of persons," approved June 5, 1794 (1 Stat. 373, c. 45), Mr. Sedgwick said that "a capitation tax, and taxes on land and on property and income generally were direct charges, as well in the immediate as ultimate sources of contribution. He had considered those, and those only, as direct taxes in their operation and effects. On the other hand, a tax imposed on a specific article of personal property, and particularly if objects of luxury, as in the case under consideration, he had never supposed had been considered a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution."
Mr. Dexter observed that his colleague "had stated the meaning of direct taxes to be a capitation tax, or a general tax on all the taxable property of the citizens, and that a gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Nicholas) thought the meaning was that all taxes are direct which are paid by the citizen without being recompensed by the consumer; but that, where the tax was only advanced and repaid by the consumer, the tax was indirect. He thought that both opinions were just, and not inconsistent, though the gentlemen had differed about them. He thought that a general tax on all taxable property was a direct tax, because it was paid without being recompensed by the consumer."
Black, writing on Constitutional Law, says:
"But the chief difficulty has arisen in determining what is the difference between direct taxes and such as are indirect. In general usage, and according to the terminology of political economy, a direct tax is one which is levied upon the person who is to pay it, or upon his land or personalty, or his business or income, as the case may be. An indirect tax is one assessed upon the manufacturer or dealer in the particular commodity, and paid by him, but which really falls upon the consumer, since it is added to the market price of the commodity which he must pay. But the course of judicial decision has determined that the term 'direct,' as here applied to taxes, is to be taken in a more restricted sense. The Supreme Court has ruled that only land taxes and capitation taxes are 'direct,' and no others. In 1794, Congress levied a tax of ten dollars on all carriages kept for use, and it was held that this was not a direct tax. And so also an income tax is not to be considered direct. Neither is a tax on the circulation of state banks, nor a succession tax, imposed upon every 'devolution of title to real estate.'"
If there were left a doubt as to what this established construction is, it seems to be entirely removed by the case of Springer v. United States, 102 U. S. 86, 102 U. S. 602. Springer was assessed for an income tax on his professional earnings and on the interest on United States bonds.
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"Our conclusions are that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate, and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complained is within the category of an excise or duty."
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429 (1895)
The views expressed in this case are adopted by Chancellor Kent and Justice Story in their examination of the subject. [Footnote 9]
Duties are defined by Tomlin to be things due and recoverable by law. The term, in its widest signification, is hardly less comprehensive than "taxes." It is applied, in its most restricted meaning, to customs; and in that sense is nearly the synonym of "imposts." [Footnote 10]
Impost is a duty on imported goods and merchandise. In a larger sense, it is any tax or imposition. [Footnote 11]
Cowell says it is distinguished from custom, "because custom is rather the profit which the prince makes on goods shipped out." [Footnote 12]
Mr. Madison considered the terms "duties" and "imposts" in these clauses as synonymous. [Footnote 13]
Judge Tucker thought "they were probably intended to comprehend every species of tax or contribution not included under the ordinary terms, taxes and excises.'"
Excise is defined to be an inland imposition, sometimes upon the consumption of the commodity, and sometimes upon the retail sale; sometimes upon the manufacturer, and sometimes upon the vendor. [Footnote 14]
Pacific Insurance Company v. Soule, 74 U.S. 7 Wall. 433 433 (1868)
… The construction always given to Article 1, indicates that the only taxes which the Constitution regards as direct taxes, are capitation taxes and taxes imposed immediately on land, and which are capable of apportionment without producing any inequality or injustice. 15
The term seems to have been derived from the Roman law, which recognized two kinds of direct taxes; a capitation tax (capitis tributum) and a land tax (agri tributum). Italy and privileged towns, which were exempted from these taxes, paid a tax of five per cent. on all testamentary successions (vicesima hereditatum), and on manumitted slaves, which together with customs and excises, seems to have been first imposed in the time of Augustus. 16
Indirect taxes, such as duties of impost and excises and every other description of the same, must be uniform, and direct taxes must be laid in proportion to the census or enumeration as remodelled in the fourteenth amendment. Taxes on lands, houses, and other permanent real estate have always been deemed to be direct taxes, and capitation taxes, by the express words of the Constitution, are within the same category, but it never has been decided that any other legal exactions for the support of the Federal government fall within the condition that unless laid in proportion to numbers that the assessment is invalid. 24
Whether direct taxes in the sense of the Constitution comprehend any other tax than a capitation tax and a tax on land is a question not absolutely decided, nor is it necessary to determine it in the present case, as it is expressly decided that the term does not include the tax on income, [90 U.S. 331, 348] w ich cannot be distinguished in principle from a succession tax such as the one involved in the present controversy. 25
Neither duties nor excises were regarded as direct taxes by the authors of the Federalist. Objection was made to the power to impose such taxes, and in answering that objection Mr. Hamilton said that the proportion of these taxes is not to be left to the discretion of the national legislature, but it is to be determined by the numbers of each State, as described in the second section of the first article. An actual census or enumeration of the people must furnish the rule, a circumstance which shuts the door to partiality or oppression. In addition to the precaution just mentioned, said he, there is a provision that all duties of imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. 26
Exactions for the support of the government may assume the form of duties, imposts, or excises, or they may also assume the form of license fees for permission to carry on particular occupations or to enjoy special franchises, or they may be specific in form, as when levied upon corporations in reference to the amount of capital stock or to the business done or profits earned by the individual or corporation. 27
SCHOLEY v. REW, 90 U.S. 331 (1874)
